


kingdom snippets

by zalzaires



Series: team gummiship [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-11-07 19:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17966624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zalzaires/pseuds/zalzaires
Summary: (mostly) marluxia-centric.1- 'a vase of flowers.' xemnas muses on the fate of a new recruit.2- 'starlit divide.' xehanort and eraqus, a night under the stars.3- 'to the next life.' marluxia notices there's a new addition to naminé's room.4- 'in memoriam, lauriam.' a new plot in the proof of existence.5 - '...donuts!' xion buys some donuts. what more do you want from me





	1. a vase of flowers

The first few days of a Nobody's existence are crucial, and delicate; they are as weakened sprouts that have been freshly transplanted. When XI first came to them, and he had granted him his new name, Xemnas did not hold high hopes for any lasting persistence. Like an orchid, the sterile chill of his surroundings seemed to do him naught but ill, until one day -- it must have been a few weeks hence his arrival -- XI broke a vase.

Saïx informed him it happened such: XI stood with a usual listlessness near the long panes of the Grey Area's windows, then he'd turned away -- to become fixated, abruptly, keenly, upon a plain white sculpture of a vase of flowers resting on a small side table beside him.

And then he'd reached out and pushed it.

The sound of shattering that ensued was the break of two facades. One the misfortuned vase, and second of whatever barrier had hung so thick over XI's detached mind. When he was asked why he did it, for the first time he spoke simply.

"There was a chip."

Upon Radiant Garden's fall, as they had all struggled their way back to clear cognition, there were once many others that were now no more. Nobodies that faded out from nonexistence as snow vanishing under the morning sun. Where they began with old names, faces, they would forget... reduce... until one day they were gone, and in their stead, perhaps remained a writhing Dusk. More often, nothing at all. Xemnas watched as his multitude of prospects dwindled to dust. He did not speak with each and every one, granted even fewer the Sigil; overall he struggled to define what enabled one Nobody to endure on where another lost cohesion. It was always a case-by-case basis, and he did not have the time nor the willingness to nurture them all. There was already so much to do. 

Though these many passings were not marked by any external reminder,  
Each and every face that left them in a breathless blink compounded in him how dire their task truly was.

In latter days, their devised system of 'mission, return, repeat' seemed to work well to reinforce the neophytes' 'being'. But perhaps that was just a confirmation bias? Prospects were scarcer than during the Organization's apocalyptic outset, to be sure -- but it seemed those that survived long enough to be encountered, conversely, were those also more likely to survive.

More often they survived. But so, so few ever kept their face.

Twilight Town was a gift, for the swelling of their lesser rank-and-file. A precious rarity for its auspicious position, teetering ever in the space between darkness and light. It was as a coast for the wayward Nobody to wash up upon, as they meandered through the darkness that their kind was so bound within.. and yet, did not even belong to. Not the darkness, nor the light. A Nobody belonged to nothing, to nowhere at all. And so they would be spit out upon the banks of this town that was cast truly in neither.

It was Xigbar who brought in XI. If it had been Xemnas to find him, he doubted he would have bothered: from the moment he first set eyes on the man, the fragile husk seemed as ready to shatter as... a vase.

XI -- Marluxia -- was more than met the eye.


	2. starlit divide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> of the two of them, xehanort is sure he is the only one who can clearly see how swiftly, inexorably they are drifting apart. the solution seems clear. but he can't make eraqus take his hand.
> 
> takes place while xehanort and eraqus were apprentices, shortly after the events xehanort mentions in his first secret report in BBS.
> 
> (xehanort's always been very, very skilled at self-justification.)

He looked at Eraqus' hand, resting alone in the dewy grass between them. Merely inches away.

Sitting beside Eraqus on that starlit hill, he ached to tell him of the truth he had found out there, alone and unshielded within the depths between stars. That the need of their armor was mere presumption. That the darkness, if you but tempered your heart and held fast before it, need not be feared...

He wanted to take his hand, and guide him... To show him that if he merely willed it, his shackles could all fall away.

Xehanort knew he could not take that step for Eraqus. Darkness was like a blade of glass: if foisted into another's hand, it would surely cut them to ribbons. You had to touch it gently, until your fingers learned themselves the places it was safe to grip. All he could give him were words to lead the way, and yet...

Eraqus' tolerance grew shorter for Xehanort's musings on the nature of dark and light, as their training deepened toward the fate of Mastery. In despair, Xehanort watched the mind of his fellow apprentice turn closed, as he took their Master's words all for ineffable truths. _Eraqus,_ he dreamed of saying. _Please understand. The truth is never something you can simply trust to be told._


	3. to the next life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marluxia notices there's a new addition to Naminé's room.

Marluxia drifted his fingers along the bars of the little white birdcage, light, careful not to disturb its new occupant. Simple little doll, made by child’s hands. A tiny smile and restful closed eyes, a pair of angel’s wings… Naminé appears to have taken his words to ‘heart.’

Days ago he had stood in this room, hanging pictures of hers with tape high on the walls where she was too short to reach, absently talking of what was to come.

 

_Naminé,_

he’d said.

_to that boy, you’ll become something immeasurably precious._

_You’ll be the angel that ushers Sora along to his next life. It will be your face he sees, when he’s beckoned through the gates to a_ _world beyond._

 

“Did you make this?” he asked.

“...yes.”

“There’s no need to hang your head.” He pulled on the cage a little, to turn it, get a better look at the doll’s other side. “It’s a fine piece of work.”

 

His approval of her little project seemed to inspire mainly unease. The color pencil she’d last picked up never made it to paper: she was now rolling it in her fingers, picking at it, eyes fixed on a chip where wood peaked out from glossy paint.

“...What would you say if it looked bad?”

Marluxia laughed. “I would say, ‘I can see there was an attempt, and you can always try again.’ There’s nothing to gain from you by concealing my opinions.” He left the cage, finally, and began surveying the gallery’s new additions. “Certainly, it proves you listen, when I’ve spoken of your role in what’s to come.”

 

One in the corner was interesting. Roxas, and another, shorter figure with a raised hood. If he had to guess, that would be Xion: the Organization’s newest formalized member. Naminé was surely the same age as them both, but that world had been denied her. When they had met –

_a tiny voice and a tiny slip of a creature as pale as the walls, save for the eyes. “is somebody there?”_

– she already had given herself a name, and somehow, ‘that was that.’ So the coat was never hers, nor a title and a number.

 

(later, in the dust of a graveyard, he would presume to understand: something about their losses, it left them receptive to a terrible change, susceptible to a ritual binding χ to their names. the pale phantom in the castle had defined herself before they ever got their hands on her.)

 

“But I did find it interesting,” he said. “That you chose to put the angel in a cage.”


	4. in memoriam, lauriam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a new plot in the proof of existence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's based a little more on my headcanons than usual. until we get more information on what happened to the dandelions, for the sake of writing marluxia i've just been saying "this guy? this guy has got one REAL scrambled egg for a memory". also in general i just like writing nobodies doing weird things in the world that never was.

“This one will be yours,” the Superior said, and the space within the frame, around their emblem, turned from solid to emptiness. Blue light unfurled, and it was ready. “The space within, as well, to paint upon it your will.”

The first thing Marluxia thought was that it looked like a headstone.

He stood atop the plot, now, at Xemnas’ side: on it, a silhouette depicting Graceful Dahlia, the scythe that had answered his call (for the first time, just yesterday) when he had went to beckon – something. Not a scythe, to be sure. But the weight felt perfect in his hands, like it was always there, waiting only for room for it to be made. At first touch he knew its name.

For Marluxia, a reaper’s scythe. And for the man he was he scarcely knew, he received this fulfilled grave. In memoriam, Lauriam.  
  
“Thank you, Superior,” he said. “Shall I?”

Xemnas folded his arms, and waited for him to go on ahead.

Marluxia strode forward, and from the corner of his eye saw the Proof of Existence fade, and drain away.  
  


The room that greeted him beyond was nothing. Well, not _nothing_ , for it had four walls, a floor, and a ceiling that was high, high away. But it was certainly nondescript. Marluxia stood in the middle of the emptiness, and closed his eyes.

He heard the Superior’s footsteps.

“...Now what? I don’t suppose you’ll present me with the ‘Catalog of Empty Shelves,’ or something of a likeness. Though if so..” He turned around to face Xemnas with a smile. “I wouldn’t complain.”

“Think of it as your next test of mettle.”

As expected. He wondered if he should be getting weary at this point. Asked so often to perform ‘himself,’ when being without was supposed to be the Organization’s uniting characteristic. He wondered if he _should_ feel such a way, but the instinct he answered to, instead...

The challenges spurred him forward. He would prove he was worthy, and would do so again, if this too was not yet the end.  
  


Concentrating, Marluxia cast his eyes to the floor. A space that was his… a place that would reflect him and only him. His determination aside, could he do it?

He had revealed to no one the depth of the damage to his memories. He suspects it was sustained when his heart was plundered, and had oh-so-patiently expected that it would merely… clear up, like waiting out a bad day of rain. But the haze remained impermeable, and the more time went on the more reluctant he was to admit to his misfortune. After all…

One of the few traits he could claim as ‘his’, was that he continued to prevail upon each offered expectation. It would be... less of him, to tip his hand and show the full truth of what little of ‘himself’ remained.

Deep in thought, Marluxia’s eyes remained fixed to the floor. Beyond his notice, tall windows in the style of a cathedral’s raised up in the wall behind him. The shape of ‘Marluxia’: to rise to meet high expectations. The design shown across the panes was complex, but ultimately repetitive; it created no recognizable meaning.  
  


The room become longer, more narrow. The ceiling grew vaulted.

A room that was his. He thought, and thought, and something small came to him.

 

 _Leaning back, his palms pressed_ _a bit too hard_ _into a windowsill. Morning light, weak and blue. Ivy climbing the walls._ (That one, it could use: white bars crossing each other in X’s, and from behind them, sculpted leaves grew forth, like there was an endless garden barely held back from spilling forth upon the room. A multitude of unopened bulbs. Once-empty walls were now rendered with a pale facade of life.)

 

He held up his hands, flexing them at the phantom pain, then dared to survey if there had been any changes, after all.

“Well… it’s something,” he comments on his work. His voice sounds more empty than usual. He’s.. disappointed? The shadow of the feeling that once meant ‘disappointed,’ anyway.

Bitter, may be the best word of all. A life lived to conclusion, and all he has left of it are symbols of death and the scent of flowers.


	5. ....donuts!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is a fic i wrote as part of a AU rp with scherzo & kara & cam & arin where the tracks laid for the eventual "true" Organization's formation get massively upset because a) xemnas has character depth and b) chain of memories is extremely disrupted because of a single mission
> 
> anyway, that's not relevant to what's happening here. this is a fic about xion having a lot of free time unexpectedly so she buys some donuts!

Xion never received a mission, today.

When she went to the Grey Area to wait for her dispatch in the morning, Saïx never appeared. Nervously, she waited longer.. then thought to ask one of the other members of the Organization loitering in the lounge what she should do.

"I'unno. You really don't have any hobbies? Geez.. I don't know how any of you guys can survive around here without knowing how to goof off." (Demyx, of course.)

"Later this evening is our weekly poker game. ..Ah, you meant now. Sorry. Bad luck, to draw before the fated hour.." (Just guess.)

Zexion had an answer. "Read this and tell me what you think." (She did. It took ten awkward minutes of craning her head over his shoulder at his laptop screen and asking him to scroll down every now and then. "I don't know who any of these characters are," she admitted, then, "I like that word 'blunette,' though?")

"Whatever comes to your mind," Vexen had said. He'd said the exact same thing to her before, when she was confused and happened by random chance to ask him for direction. It felt like a test that she didn't know the rules of.

 

Vexen was the last person she asked. What was in her mind? All she could think about was the disruption in routine and how it made her uneasy. She wondered if Roxas was still in the castle, if he'd been given a mission or was just as baffled as she was right now. Finding out what Roxas was up to, then -- that's what was in her mind. But as soon as she was on her feet again, the sight of her ~~hooded~~ head coming up into view caught her an order, after all.

"What are you still doing here?" Xaldin asked. "Should you not be off collecting hearts?" It was... frustrating. Finding something she actually did want to do, and getting ordered right out of it before she could even try. But fear of falling short of her ever-present, ever-nebulous quotas sent her on her way, through a dark corridor on into Twilight Town. She hadn't been personally cleared to visit any other worlds yet, after all.

And besides.

The people of Twilight Town, who she'd caught fragments of the lives of from the shadows.. they didn't deserve to lose their hearts. They didn't deserve to become Nobodies like her.

They didn't deserve it, but...

  
Xion found herself drawn to watching the humans and pondering what sort of Nobody they might become. If they'd maybe want to be friends. As heartless melted under her keyblade and offered up the hearts buried in their darkness, she found herself smiling - not at her success, but at the image in her mind of the top of the clocktower, but bristling over with people, a mess of legs dangling over the edge.

 

Without clear guidelines for today’s ‘mission,’ there’s no clear time and place to RTC, no need to hunker down and type up a report. It’s up to her to decide when she’s had enough of following the subtle ebbs and flows of darkness that trace the heartless’ steps. She decides to call it a day after a particularly prolonged bout where no less than four Green Requiems were supporting a single, frustrating, slippery, _infuriating_ Soldier.

Mindlessly, Xion approached the ice cream shop… but it was only about lunch time, nowhere near when they would all gather for ice cream. Out of sorts, she simply stood around for a bit, overcome by possibility… Maybe she could… try a different food shop? It felt weird, sure, but-- lunch, right? This was what people did at this time of day.

Bread was a more normal ‘meal’ thing to eat, right?

 

..And, after some confusion with ordering at a donut shop, that is the story of how Xion ended up with a box of a dozen donuts when her appetite wasn’t even, like, three donut level, really.

There was no other way around it, she thought, staring in dismay at the final chunk left of donut three. She was going to have to ask for help.

 

\--For some reason, ‘I brought donuts’ seemed to catch the attention of everyone in the Grey Area faster than she’d ever seen. Soon enough the box went from nine, to six, to a single lonely cake donut, topped with dark frosting and glittery yellow sprinkles. She decided she wanted to bring that one to Roxas. They hadn’t run into each other at Twilight Town, and apparently, Saïx hadn’t shown up to give ANYONE their missions today – so there was a good chance he was still in the castle, right?

(Unbeknownst to Xion, she’d just missed him, and Roxas wouldn’t be setting foot anywhere near the castle again today at all.)

She looked and looked, carrying the largely-empty box every step of the way, its contents making funny little sliding sounds alongside the stray sprinkles in the box. No sign of Roxas in his room, no sign of Roxas in any of the common areas-- --there’s no trace of Roxas, but Xion rounds a corner and lights up when she notices Axel.

Axel, who she runs up to (but not too quickly, or Roxas’ present will slide around and get squished!)

Axel, who… With a single-minded focus on only how to keep stepping brusquely forward, completely gave her the cold shoulder.

“Axel?” She called out. But it’s too late, or not enough, or who even knows what’s going on with him, really, Axel’s fun and answers their questions thoughtfully but he is, as Xion finds most of the adults of the Organization to be, hopelessly inscrutable. As quick as they crossed paths, it’s over.

He's gone.


End file.
